Grateful woman's message to person who returned lost wallet with large sum of cash

Cory Morse photos | The Grand Rapids PressDarcy Schmitz, 47, of Cannon Township, looks out her slider door last week after feeding squirrels. Schmitz lost $1,500 from her late mother's estate sale, but a shopper at the Family fare on Northland Drive NE found the money and turned it in. Schmitz, who loves to give to people and animals, said she is thankful somebody did the right thing.

Theresa Swem and her colleagues at Family Fare Supermarket on Northland Drive NE aren’t used to dealing with lost wallets containing a lot of money.

“Most of ’em don’t have any cash or, if they do, it’s a small amount,” she says of lost and misplaced billfolds and handbags that customers leave behind.

But this black wallet was different. Contained within its folds was $1,500, mostly $100 bills.

Even as store employees were trying to track down its owner, Darcy Schmitz, 47, was reaching into her pocket to pay for a rental truck to drive to Manistee and finish carting off the rest of her late mother’s belongings.

Sandra died a year ago of an aneurysm, which followed a debilitating stroke she suffered in 2003.

She was forced to abandon her business, Candy Mountain, which specialized in handmade chocolates.

Sandra left behind a storehouse of belongings and, last month, Darcy did her best to start passing along her mother’s items. The bulk was sold the first week in May by an estate sale service.

Darcy returned to the Cannon Township home she shares with her father, Dave, with $1,500 in cash from the sale.

As she is relating this to me, a squirrel appears at the sliding glass window facing the backyard.

Darcy smiles, gets up from the table, draws a peanut from a nearby bag, opens the slider, bends down and feeds the critter by hand.

A few minutes later, she does the same thing again. And again. And again.

One of Darcy Schmitz's furry friends peers through the slider at her home.

It’s obvious to me Darcy is a giver. I ask her if that’s how she sees herself. She sighs and says, “Probably too much so. Just ask my dad.”

I do, and he raises his eyes, smiles and says it’s true.

Darcy, who grew up in Grand Rapids and graduated from Creston High School in 1982, also has health issues. She suffers from a liver ailment, and it’s serious enough to put her on disability. She tires easily.

Still, she was determined on May 10 to make that final run to Manistee for the rest of her mother’s goods. But when she dug down for money to pay for the rental vehicle, her billfold was missing.

Retracing her steps, she remembered she had been to the Family Fare the day before. If someone found a wallet containing $1,500, though, surely, it was gone.

But whoever found it did turn it in — every dollar.

Family Fare worked hard to reunite Darcy with her cash, but did not secure the name of the customer who turned it in, which is a beautiful thing.

It would be nice to feature the name and face of the honest person in our midst.

But I like to ponder the possibility the person isn’t seeking fame, just did it out of a sense of fairness.

“Whoever it is,” says Darcy, “I hope that they know how important it was. It wasn’t just money. It was money from my mother’s things. There’s more meaning to that in a way some people might not realize.”

Darcy says a part of her would understand if the finder had kept it. “People are struggling,” she says. “People are out of work.”

When Darcy returned to Family Fare in response to a phone call that her wallet had been found, she encountered a gentleman handing out complimentary copies of The Grand Rapids Press.